TOPIC: Consent as taught by fruit

We are studying race and gender in the media. When developing curriculum or producing any type of media, we strive as educators and responsible members of society to fairly and accurately represent gender and race in the characters and actors used. It becomes a major consideration to weed out any subconscious bias or insideous stereotypes but it is critical work that should never be neglected. As I have turned a critical eye to the media I've been viewing over the last week, I ran across a video that manages in many ways to completely circumvent issues of race and gender in a video, of all things, about sexual assault prevention.

This consent video was created by two Concordia University film studies graduates using fruit to depict scenarios that teach students how to recognize boundaries and be an active bystander. It's interesting to see how using fruit both adds and subtracts from the message and content. For one thing, most perpetrators are men (statistically, white college-age middle- and upper-class men), so the fruit somewhat fails to represent that. In another way, the fruit can represent non-binary gender and experiences that move away from the heteronormative to be more inclusive.

Race is also not addressed since the characters are fruit. It's interesting how the "size" of the fruit and even the behaviors could read as "masculine" or "feminine" but the skin color of the fruit is meaningless It shows how gender is less easily disguised than race through animation, but is it really helping or hurting the message? In this particular context, I don't know how the absence of racial identity affects the message of the video. I'll be interested to see how my views change as we progress in the class. Here is the links since the file could not be saved: vimeo.com/180762758

I've also seen this video about consent and experienced mixed feelings. In it's attempt to make it entertaining, or even casual, it failed to emphasize who these predators can look like. Just like you stated that typically white college-age middle and upperclass men commit these crimes, I feel this indirectly reinforces the stereotypes of who we think are the predators. I do agree that this is a way for students to recognize boundaries because unfortunately, there are many people who believe an unconscious person deserves to be assaulted. I take this video as an attempt to educate a community of students while staying away from the "tough" topics of the intersection of race and gender.